Paizo Games General /pgg/

at least a 20% chance

Takashi as the star center
Alexander as the power forward
Derrin as the small forward
Witch as the shooting guard
Rinta as the point guard
Ceraphine as the coach who is getting too old for these young folk's shenanigans, damnit!

Guys, help me out. I'm trying to remember an archetype, and I'm losing my mind here. The flavour was that you saw curses and magical inflictions as angry spirits, and you could try and negotiate with them to go away.

Am I wrong here? Do you guys know what I'm thinking of?

>Does it make sense for Arcane and Divine magic to be split

Technically no

>for "Nature" magic to be divine?

I always kind of hated that. I actually kind of like 4e's splitting of "power sources" up for each class. If I had to redo power sources for Pathfinder, I'd split up power sources into Arcane, Primal, Divine, and Psychic. Take Ranger, Hunter, Druid, Shaman, and put them under the "Primal" label and have that be mechanically different from Divine.

>Why is healing almost exclusively in Divine Magic's purview anyway?

Wild guess? Jesus. He healed men, he was "divine" as the son of god, and generally "healing men" were viewed as being touched by some manner of divinity

>How do we make healing in combat more viable?

In Pathfinder, there's no difference between a character at 1/100 hp and one at 100/100 HP, but at 0 hp you're downed and start getting worse from there. In my opinion? Introduce grading of Hitpoints and penalties based on what % of HP you're at. At 100%? You're at optimal fighting ability. For every 25% you're under 100%, you take a penalty. Have some classes get benefits from being under 100%, have feats related to it, and make healing less about "not dying" and more "keep being topped up".

It might interact weirdly with stuff like Nonlethal and Burn, but that's another story for later.

Who are the tallest apps?

There's a few like that. Rivethun Spirit Channeler Medium and Animist Shaman.

Alexander tops the list at 6'7. There's no need to mention anyone else.

The only two I remember are Alexander at 6'7" and Jericho at 6'6"

But Takashi says his preferred position is Small Forward!

Rinta as the point guard is perfect though.

Then Alexander is the Center, no question.

>First contact is finally out
>None of the enemies seem all that cool to me
Did I fall off the hype train? Maybe this means I have to do a custom setting.

its because they are just the enemies we have been hearing about, and thats the idea.

THE important thing is that you tell us about your setting, user!

>animist
That's it, thanks! Oh, dude, you're a lifesaver.

>Dog

You're welcome, and the picture is surprisingly appropriate :^)

What could allow me to replace one of my limbs with a crossbow? Asking for a friend

Still wondering why the fuck clerics are the worst priests

Because you touch yourself at night

Because a 'Cleric' isn't actually a priest, more accurately a Cleric acts like a Chaplin in battle, note that they can wear up to MEDIUM ARMOR as well as wield all sorts of weapons

Clerics generally wouldn't be a priest, but a Cloistered Cleric archetyped one might be.

I think the Wyrwood has an alternate racial that gives you a third arm to put a shield or weapon on it.

God I just looked at his mystic Archetype

is the Noetic Mystic not like complete trash because it loses glyphs?

Mechanical Element Kineticist for one

New DM here.

I'm looking for examples of BBEG mantras or scripts they use to indoctrinate their followers. Preferably something not outright evil looking too.

Also any resources or source books I should look though for ideas?

Have you ever... Spent like, hours and hours of time either hyping yourself up on a character concept or character itself, and when it came time to actually write them down you realize they've got an awesome backstory but terrible motivation for the campaign? And the more you think about it the more tenuous their connection becomes?

>Why is healing almost exclusively in divine's magic purview anyway?
Game balance because of how flexible arcane magic is.

>How can we make healing in combat a viable tactic?
Contingency Heal on Mystic Theurge is viable already

Can anybody lay out the reasons why I should make my nerdly scholar a Wizard vs a Sage Sorcerer?

And as I'm going Conjuration, how does Master Summoner stack up?

Campaign will eventually go Mythic but not until much later. Like level 15 of a starting at level 1 campaign later.

What's their backstory, fampire?

Yea but that's because campaign motivation is really hard to come up with. I always try to do better but personality and backstory are more interesting to me than motivation anyway.

>Spend tons of time prepping for a campaign
>Realize that what I have is actually trash
>It's extremely dry
>I should have been preparing other things
I know the feeling.

You mean reasons in term of game mechanics or for roleplaying?

Mythic sucks so I'm sorry to hear part that unless you've tried it and you like it.

It's a Chinese warring states styled campaign. This PC is going to be a magical scholar that has spent their entire life buried in books learning history and researching magic and how to use it to improve the lives of the people while writing treatises and such from the seclusion of the massive libraries of the old capital.

Nothing elaborate developed yet but it's a homebrew setting and the GM is still expanding on it.

You're probably overthinking. Keep the main plot simple, let the details stand out. It's the details that the PCs will be interacting with from minute to minute. You can never tell just what the players will latch onto, so just keep trying things.

>part that
I'm getting incoherent

None of them have enough special abilities, nor are they really interesting. And their offense is stunningly awful. The fucking blood brother is a CR 7 monster and it has to land every attack it makes on a 5th level soldier built by Paizo for 4 rounds to drop them.

So what you're saying is, it's better to have a great backstory and a shitty motivation than an excellent motivation and a shitty backstory?

It is what it is, we're a pretty set group and the most recent GM has gotten really into the idea of Mythic.

I wish it was better balanced, sure, but the combats in the last campaign with it were pretty fun. Nobody is really min-max playing however. I'm probably the most likely to focus on mechanics personally, and this is actually my first time to play a pure caster.

I was. I think my problem was that I looked at adventure paths/prewritten adventures, and assumed, for some reason, that my material had to be on a similar level. Obviously I failed and burned out

So what I think the better approach is would be to work out NPC's and stuff, like you said, the things players will interact with.

No... I thought you were prepping as the GM and was offering GM advice.

Keeping it simple still stands though. Getting sucked into a complicated narrative is a trap. Don't make the reader work for the story.

Well the Wizard is widely regarded to be the stronger of the two options mechanically, but they're both overpowered so that's not saying much. I actually think the sorcerer is better levels 18+. Have you considered Archivist, though? It's interesting to me that you've narrowed it down to two of the three INT-based arcane casting classes.

If it helps, that IS what I was saying.

Can confirm. If you have a really good motivation that gets you hyped up, then you'll end up frustrated and left wanting when the GM decides to go do something else, like focus on a side arc instead of the main plot. Better to have a simple motivation so you don't get overly attached to the character and can take things at the GM's pace.

Thanks, that's a real weight off my shoulders! I can't half-ass it, but now I don't have quite the panic as I did when I realized the string between Backstory and Session 0 can be a little frayed!

I recently got an int +2 headband and a dex +2 belt, and the info i got says that they're considered temporary modifiers for the first 24 hours
does that mean that after one day of wearing it i permanently obtain the dex and int bonuses, or do i lose the bonuses when i stop wearing them?

You lose them if you take it off.

I like it, consider styling them like a taoist wizard who learned secrets of the universe.

Also consider watching that new movie about the taoist wizard

Archivist as in the 3rd party or Archivist as in the Bard archetype?

I would have to make an extremely good case to get my GM to allow a 3rd party class. I really don't see it happening.

As far as the Bard arch goes, it feels pretty unimpressive? I think I'd rather go battlefield control mechanically or summoning and throwing out beasties.

Any tips or tricks if I want to play a Tiny Bug Person whose found themselves with the need to Adventure and stop a great evil with a party of 'Umies and Pointy-Ears?

My bad I meant Arcanist. I need to eat something...

Well, first we need to know how you're going to pull that off.

Out of my own experience and from what i've seen, i've realized that characters are not finished being created at chargen. I recently started with a Ubisoft Protagonist(tm) tier character, and it grew up to be one of my favorites despite their initial blandness, because I was able to make the character grow over time by forging relationships with the party members, slowly showing his backstory to the rest of the party, npc interactions, ambitions, decisions made in different circumstances... Even if it doesn't come out working out of the box, it'll come to you.

I once offered to DM a short campaign for some friends. A few sessions of undead gladiatoral combat, and as you increase in renown and rank, you get perks and small bonuses, and eventually a choice to earn your freedom or get a full-time job fighting. Almost immediately, two of them wanted to be clerics or undead rangers, one of them talked me into playing a pre-nerf demon binder, so I had to fucking tolerate my zimbies and skeletons dealing with babaus and those stupid pig things he summoned five or six at a time, and the last asshole kept bringing in his friends to try playing for the first time.

You have no idea how infuriating it was to put up with one guy who spent more time shittalking about bitches than playing, another guy who was high and with, and I quote, "88 IQ", and a third faggot I am certain stole my wallet, and Almost my laptop.

The campaign fell apart after the fourth game when the friends decided to leap into the stands and start massacring the attendees.

I feel your pain, user.

Consider the following; your motivation for being there is only going to be relevant for maybe... Oh, I don't know, 2-3 sessions? After that the main plot should be motivation enough to continue.

You don't need an elaborate backstory explaining your deep-seated disgust of goblins to be a goblin slayer in RotRL, for example.

Then why do so many /pgg/ campaigns insist on characters fully-formed out of the gate?

this as well
my backstory was just "i was a noble who studied magic and martial combat because my dad was rich but then kicked me out of the family because he's a dick and blamed his issues on me" but none of that affects the fact that the world is literally going to fall, and preventing that is motivation enough regardless of what the character is

I was just thinking of refluffing a Pixie as a Beetle. Say that his Bug City is just as endangered as the Human ones if the Big Bad Evil washes over the world.

Try sprite instead

>but none of that affects the fact that the world is literally going to fall, and preventing that is motivation enough regardless of what the character is

Hell, I'd argue that gives you a leg up compared to the people who built their entire character around being a Hero. A piece of shit NEET getting thrown out and forced into a whirlwind of heroics can play off their shortcomings and flaws in roleplay or the plot itself, while the Hero that has been preparing for this moment since the day he came out of the womb... Won't, really.

Cool, thanks.

So why bother with an arcanist instead of a Wizard or Sage Sorc?

>You must wear your headband for 24 hours and never take it off!

That's retarded.

It's a filter, I guess? Think about it this way- When you go to apply for a job, you give them your resume, which shows them everything about you.

In essence, it's like a character resume. Online apps look more promising when the GM has some kinda idea what you want, so that they don't have a million "Here's my build, I'll tell you about the character later". Which is also why I can't apply to /pgg/ games, because I can write a backstory, but I can't do a personality before the game.

Any /pgg/ games recruiting that a farm boy summoner with a scarecrow monster could fit in?

So people know what they're in for with a character concept.

A Vigilante on their own might sound fine, but imagine the situation that will arise when that Vigilante drops an, "I was raped so I became what I am" bomb on the party. That could and would be avoided if the Vigilante had to write a whole backstory.

Fluffy Tales 9!

What sort of badguy are you looking to make? It'll make it easier to come up with some kind of literiture they could pass out that convinces people to join them.

that sounds like the literal opposite kind of game it would fit in

Ensoulment and Journey to the West, maybe?

How good is he at bazketball?

>the one on the right

>You will never fuck Ant from behind while Wasp watches

the scarecrow is eventually gonna fly so pretty sweet at dunking

It works this way to prevent certain exploits. This game has a lot of tedious rules like that but that's why it's my favorite system.

FLYING IS AGAINST THE RULES

Then refluff it as "jump good."

Oh yeah, then why is "I Believe I can Fly" the theme of Space Jam?

FINE ITS LARGE AND HAS REACH SO THERE

Flying and JUMPING really well aren't the same thing, gosh.

you can't just like, hover above the court, thats clearly illegal.

AN EXCELLENT CENTER THEN.

Not the user you were responding to but as a newbie GM I'm waiting for Starfinder and now I have a good idea for a campaign I'd like to run that I'm piecing together now.

I won't give anything away but it'll involve 3 evil sorts who awake to the new world that is the Starfinder setting and are having fun doing what they always do which is to cause death and destruction and tricking hapless mortals into doing the horrible things they can imagine because it's funny for them. That and making grissly trophies from the victims of their macinations.

Once the rules for monsters come out i'll be able to hodge podg some kind of stats for them but otherwise to help learn the system I think I'll go with some kind of Arcade style of play that is meta to get people acquainted with Starfinder.

point to me in the rule book where it says you cant fly, how do you think airbud became a nba star

Bazketball has much more stringent rules than Basketball due to meddling wizards.

>been wanting to get more info on the Qlippoth and the Qlippoth Lords for years now
>pick up Bestiary 6
>it's all there
YES
YES
YES

>mfw it includes every Infernal Duke, Major Demon and Empyreal Lord

Extremely high-powered romp through the planes when?

>you can literally make a campaign that's basically just God of War

>mfw the party is effectively Aldrich, slaughtering nascent gods and consuming their spark of divinity

What would this campaign even start at?

killing Pharasma through freak chance

Lvl 16, Gestalt, 40 PB, 10 million GP starting wealth.

I'm not necessarily recommending it. I just meant that I think it should be part of the conversation, since if you are debating between two classes, considering the hybrid of those two classes is intuitive. It combines the potential with overnight prep of a Wizard with the flexible spam of a Sorcerer.

I think the biggest thing to consider is the 3 methods of learning and casting spells that the 3 classes offer and decide which one you'd want to play that way. Consider if you want to have to be able to apply metamagic on the fly.

The Arcanist can choose an ability that allows them to counterspell as an immediate action, which is really useful.

The Wizard is the "best class," but I don't see a point in choosing a Tier 1 class over a Tier 2 class for mechanical reasons, nor vice versa.

I WANT THIS.

I WANT THIS NOW. GIMME GIMME.

No you don't. The last game that had that was a bamboozle!

A BAMBOOZLE!

Why do Red Mantis Assassins look like evil Kamen Riders?

That was a silly game built for silly people! It was ANIME and ANIME deserves to bamboozle!

This is serious God of War end-game shenanigans for men with hair on their chest!